It could have been so different. had things gone according to plan, this would have been a slick Regent-branded hotel, the company's first in the Maldives. Then the Maldivian owner went bankrupt and the project went belly-up.

Enter billionaire Malaysian businessman and sharp-eyed property investor Ong Beng Seng and his wife Christina Ong, the driving force behind COMO hotels. They picked up the ill-fated property, dusted it down and came up with a workable plan, as they so often do (Parrot Cay in the Turks & Caicos and Point Yamu in Thailand were both rescued from previous developers by the Ongs, who then turned them into serious big-hitters).

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The result is Maalifushi by COMO, which comes to the end of its soft-opening phase this month. A Maldivian sister hotel to the much-admired Cocoa Island, the latest addition bears a few residual signs of Regent glossiness not readily associated with Mrs Ong's style of eco-friendly understatement. There are massive marble baths, for example, and enormous mirrors framed in heavy, dark wood.

A Beach Suite bedroom

Peter Browne

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In essence, however, the suites are refined and pared back, with oak floors and limed-light furniture, decorative swathes of netting around the beds and plunge pools with thatched salas. The white-painted overwater versions are streamlined and sharp-focused, bouncing with light, their infinity pools reflecting the blue-on-blue-on-blue of the lagoon and sky. Beachfront suites are peaceful, private places to hang out, with jungly little gardens and paths leading to the gently lapping shoreline. Where Cocoa Island is very much aimed at couples, Maalifushi is family-focused, with child-friendly beach picnics and snorkelling trips on offer, and child-minding at the kids' club Play by COMO.

On my arrival on the island, dazzled by the Equatorial light, I was shown around by a gentle, understanding soul who remarked how big the island is. During my time on Maalifushi I came to appreciate it for a great many things - the robin's-egg blue sea, the immaculate reefs, the white beaches scuttling with happy crustaceans, the temple of a spa - but definitely not for its size, a fair percentage of which is given over to the 300-odd staff necessary to run a professional outfit such as this.

The arrivals jetty

Peter Browne

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But perhaps no other island smells as good. COMO is famous for its holistic Shambhala Spas, and its own-brand potions are distributed in tiny bottles in the guest bathrooms and no doubt in the staff quarters, too, because every encounter on the island comes with a waft of eucalyptus or camphor or bergamot, leaving an olfactory impression of calm goodwill.

Reinforcing this seductive illusion of a paradisiacal idyll is a landscaped tropical Narnia of palms and hibiscus and spongy undergrowth running along the island's spine, a blessedly cool, gently winding, white-sand path. You'd never guess there are rooms on either side, crouching behind high walls, or that both east- and west-facing shores are a just few metres away.

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Every day, small groups of women in a curious uniform of white burkas and baseball caps sweep the beaches and paths clear of coral and leaves. Members of a local women's institute, they are ferried back and forth from Guraidhoo, the nearest inhabited island. I went across with Nasih Ahmed, a young fisherman who guides at the hotel's watersports centre, on a Local Island Cultural Excursion (there are eight activities to choose from each day). We walked the tree-lined streets past brightly painted schools, a lone police station (unnecessary, Ahmed pointed out, as there is no crime) and mosques, one more than a century old, before stopping to watch kids play basketball and to catch up with Ahmed's friends over an Italian coffee at a garden café. It felt like I'd visited a village in Kerala for the morning.

Local fishermen supply the chefs at Maalifushi, who do superb things with red snapper and lagoon lobster, and the fragrant curry of reef fish in tomato, coconut and ramba leaf is sensational. The Wagyu beef striploin with a walnut-pesto sauce, grilled endive and charred onions would put any New York steakhouse to shame. There's also a sushi restaurant and a COMO Shambhala spa menu delivering food high in living enzymes.

But it's really the people most guests will remember. A mix of enthusiastic newbies and experienced staff from other COMO properties (it's company policy to move workers around), they are without exception kind, professional and immensely proud of this project which - even by early indications - shows every sign of becoming the best new family hotel in the Maldives.

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Bailey Robinson (+44 1488 689700; www.baileyrobinson.com) offers seven nights for the price of five, from £2,665 per person, including B&B accommodation in a Beach Suite, direct flights to Malé with British Airways and local transfers. Valid until 25 December 2014. Book 45 days in advance to receive US$150 resort credit per room This feature was first published in Condé Nast Traveller July 2014.